EUROPE TO-DAY

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXVI, Issue 12370, 8 June 1938, Page 2

EUROPE TO-DAY

THE GREAT DAYS OF GREECE No apology is offered for going back to the past when we come to Greece. We cannot understand Europe to-day if we do not see it by the light of the past, and to know Greece at all we must know its yesterdays. We may go hack at least 4500 years, for at Cnossus in Crete —a Greek island colony—British excavators have found many civilisations of ancient date. Indeed Crete was the first European land to attain high achievement in art and was the forerunner of Greece. If we cross the sea and come to Asia Minor we find the supposed site of ancient Troy—recalling memories of the huge wooden horse, and the siege ending about 11S4 B.C. At Marathon— not far from Athens—we may look over the battleground of one of the most famous of all decisive victories —gained over the Persians in 490 8.C.; and °h’ Salamis wo shall remember how Themistocles won a brilliant naval triumph against the Persians only ten years later. In this land honeycombed with history stands ever glorious Thermopylae where 300 Spartans in Salamis year were faithful unto death, Leonidas stirring them on, as they faced the Persians and died with a shout. The Parthenon begun in *SO stands as one of the glories of the groat days, and Edessa, now Vodena. is remembered as the early capital of Macedonia. It was from Macedonia that Alexander the Great sprang in 356. He had the immortal Aristotle as Iris tutor —a son of Stagira in what is now Salonika. In 336 P..C, Philip the Second of Macedonia— father of Alexander —was murdered. At Mantinoa wo think of Epannnondas, the great Thehian general who defeated the Spartans: in 2SO B.C, Pyrrhus, one of the greatest generals of antiquity sailed for the Roman Taremum taking elephants with him—the first ever seen there, and a terror to the people.